12/06/2004

GREAT DATE FOOD FOR A COUPLE BUCKS.

This dish I'm going to show you how to cook is great because it can be modified to fit different dietary needs (is your date a vegetarian? Does she prefer seafood? Chicken? Beef?).

The key to good cooking is obviously ingredients, but a nice way to trick a meal into tasting like it was made with better ingredients is with spices and careful cooking. So here we go.

Diablo Ghetto Pasta-

servings: Two

ingredients list:

•1 1/2 cups pasta (any kind)

•1 can stewed tomatoes

•1 thing of garlic

•salt and pepper

•italian mixed dry seasoning

•1/2 stick butter

•1 onion

• two teaspoons red hot pepper flakes (like the kinds you get at the pizza shop in the sprinkle can to put on your pizza)

• One breast of chicken, or 12 shrimp, or a quarter pound of ground beef, or a small steak, whichever you prefer.

It may seem like a lot of money when you go out to buy these things, but you're not going to use all of the ingredients, you'll have left overs for other dishes. So though it seems like a lot of money for one dish you'll actually get maybe four or five servings out of the left over ingredients, so it ends up being like 2 bucks per meal.

Now, if your stove sucks, or if you have no stove and are using a hotplate or something broke ass like that... turn the hotplate/electric stove on and let that heat up. When it looks like it's hot, turn on the hot water from the faucet and wait for the water to steam. Keep in mind, if you only have a sauce pan, this can work for everything, you can also cook the pasta in a frying pan provided the pasta is completely covered in water.) Fill your pot/saucepan/fryingpan up with that hot water and add salt to the water. The salt raises the specific heat of the water and will allow it to store more energy, in a short way of saying it, it cooks the pasta better and will keep it from getting slimey.

If you have two pots, start heating another one on a medium to high heat and throw the butter in there, while that's melting and heating up, slice up the onions, you can either make thin slices out of it, or you can dice them, it's up to you.

Now you want to cook the onions slow, there shouldn't be much bubbling at all to the onions, so adjust your heat settings accordingly, whatever a "low medium" heat is on your appliance, set it to that. What we're going to do is "sweat" the onions. Slowly taking them out of their hard state, making them soft.

Sweat the onions for about two or three minutes, until they've just begun to gloss over and add a teaspoon of salt, teaspoon of pepper. Keep the onions moving. Don't walk away from the stove, just keep them moving. Add a pinch of the italian dried spices now. As the onions start to soften up more, go ahead and add another pinch of salt and pepper.

Take out your thing of garlic, rip off a piece, take the flat of your knife and lay it on top of the piece, and hit the flat of your blade with your fist, crushing the piece. This will release the oils and also make it easier to peel, most of the skin will just come off. Quickly chop this up into little pieces and throw it in with the onions and continue to slowly cook and move that around. If you want more garlic, put more garlic at this step. It's all a matter of preference. Mild flavors will please most crowds. In turn pleasing most dates, so that's why we're doing it this way, feel free to add whatever spices you think would work at whatever quantities you like.

Now throw in the red hot pepper flakes

Keep this mixture moving. At this point you want to add in whatever type of animal you picked.

If you picked ground beef or shrimp, throw in some chunks of ground beef or the shrimp into the pot and let that cook with the butter and onions and spices.

If you picked steak or chicken, slice it up into thin strips and throw it in with the rest of the ingrediants.

Check your pasta, fish out a piece, if it is too firm, chalky or crunchy, leave it in. Check back with the pasta every five minutes and taste a piece. You want to take the pot off of the heat and dump it into a strainer the second the pasta is where you want it. If you don't have a strainer, throw a cup of cold water into the pot to stop the cooking process then fish out the pasta with a spoon or fork until you have it all out.

If you picked steak, chicken, or shrimp, check to make sure they are fully cooked. Once they are, take out six strips/pieces to use later as decorative pieces.

Now open the can of stewed tomatoes, take out like six or seven stewed tomatoes and chop them up, drain the liquid. Throw the chopped up tomatoes into the pan with the butter onions and animals and mix everything together evenly.

Turn the heat up to a medium high (high if your stove sucks) and start moving the food faster now. Let all of the flavors infuse with each other. Keep shifting everything around, let each piece of food get it's chance to hit the heat directly. Once everything looks evenly heated, continue to cook for another two minutes, and then take the pan off the heat.

Presentation:

Even if all you have is paper plates you can still make it look nice. Put two paper plates out on your counter. Neatly lay out the pasta on each plate, lay on enough of your cooked mixture to coat the pasta, but not so much that it becomes difficult to work with while you eat. Now take out another stewed tomato and cut it into cubes, take three cubs for each dish and place them in the center of the meal on top. Then make a sort of TeePee shape with the three pieces you took out before to finish off the decoration piece. Now take some of your dry italian spice mix and sprinkle it around the edges of the plate.

Done.

It's quick, it tastes great, and doing your best to make the dish look nice even when you don't have a lot of money is actually a big turn on for women. Women care more about what you do with what you have, then they care about what you have. Attraction is different to a woman then a "prospect" is. Yes women "date" guys who have money, but really they're using the guy to get free stuff. In their minds, if this guy is so dense that he can't tell she really doesn't like him, then he deserves to have his stuff taken. Ya ever notice how super hot girls who have money always have some reject with them? Attraction is all about you, the person, and everything else is secondary. Maybe that guy's not a reject, maybe she's not just some crazy person, maybe that guy just "gets it" when it comes to what women look for, and does the best he can. If you do the best you can with what you've got, that says a lot about YOU the person. So don't ever get discouraged because you weren't dealt a fair hand. Stand up and be creative and stack the deck in your favor.

I'll be back soon with more Broke Ass Tactics. And keep checking back because the Broke Ass: Guide to Life book is on the way.

-MidnightSun-

(content © 2004 midnightsun)